The insider: the web site that brought Mesa's williams campus together

ABSTRACT

Many campuses have central points of information dissemination, but few have an Insider (http://insider.east.asu.edu) like system [1]. The Insider is Arizona State University East's and the Williams Campus's central point of communication for day to day campus happenings and events. It is a web-based application that was developed mostly by student workers and graduate assistants. It was the result of the idea for an intranet that kept snowballing into something wonderful. The Insider is an ASP based web application with many channels that is very easy to maintain. Self-maintenance is one beauty of it, but its power for being the central point of information dissemination for students is another. It contains: 1) a headlines section that points out current campus events or neat things happening around the community. 2) a calendar of campus events that's just a click away. 3) the daily weather forecast. 4) a page that lists campus outages. 5) a Cheers & Jeers section that allows everyone on campus to give feedback about situations and services. 6) a summary/snapshot page that is the Active Desktop page for our 300+ Commons/Site/Classroom computers. 7) an advertisement section to search for a roommate or try to sell a car, bike, TV, etc.This paper will examine The Insider, how it works, how it is administered, the development/planning process, and how it benefits the campus community.

REFERENCES

• 1: Insider Home Page. http://insider.east.asu.edu
• 2: Insider Snapshot. http://insider.east.asu.edu/activedesktop/html.
• 3: Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) Website http://www.microsoft.com/iis

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.1 Systems and Information Theory
          Subjects: Information theory

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.1 Systems and Information Theory
          Subjects: Value of information
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services
          Subjects: Web-based services; Data sharing
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI); Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

General Terms:
Documentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
ASP, Arizona State University, IIS, Williams Campus, active desktop, channel, collaboration, database, insider, intranet, newspaper, participation, web